38 Responses to “Compare the Headlines”

I am in two minds about this kind of thing. There’s no excuse for excessive force, but in a potential riot situation, even necessary force looks pretty tough.

Last year’s London riots began with a protest about a police shooting. The police begain with a softly, softly approach, and the riots spread – people phoned each other and said that they could gather an loot with impunity. Indeed , over the weekend, many people reported that the police just stood by and watched, and apparently that is exactly what they were ordered to do.

The tabloids (and the citizens) were calling for watercannon and rubber bullets. That would have been excessive force. But it was necessary to change tactics. The riots ended when the police went in with their shields and sticks, broke things up and arrested people.

Without the video, I might be a little more willing to give the police the benefit of the doubt regarding use of force in a potential riot situation if they hadn’t then gone and tried to buy up and hide all the evidence of what actually went down.

WITH the video – WOW. That is some impressive brutality. The let the dog loose on a KID, and the K9 officer couldn’t call the dog off at all. And moms holding kids and pushing strollers. Big threat there, totally reasonable.

Of course, when the incident starts because the police fatally shoot someone for running away (according to the vid), what else can we expect?

I’m sure that there are incidents of real rioting and looting (some of the incidents following Hurricane Katrina come to mind) which justify or necessitate the show of force you alluded to. However, as the video shows (please check it out elsewhere), this was definitely NOT such a situation. The video shows what appear to be 20 or so innocent people milling about when a bunch of cops dolled up in black death costumes swarm on them and begin a mass assault.

There was indeed a riot in the situation: the cops rioting against unarmed and defenseless people.

Four people [said] that police offered to buy their cell phone video of the incident.

I can’t believe that. Those people probably just conspired to smear the honest and dedicated law enforcement professionals of Anaheim who stare death in the face every day for no other reason than to shield the citizens of their city from ruthless and deadly gangs/protesters.

#7, I can’t believe that the cops tried to buy the video. Don’t they usually just try to smash the phone while arresting you for not following police orders?

Maybe that strategy has brought them too much bad press so they’re turning over a new leaf. haha!

Yeah, I look forward to hearing more detail about the claims that the cops were trying to buy the videos. I don’t put it past them because cops are not really very bright when it comes to their interactions with the public.

I was in an accident recently where I was about to record the cops discussion. The cops took our phones and turned them off saying that they might need them as evidence in the investigation.

That might be true in the case of a car accident but Isuspect that this is just one of the newer tactics cops are employing to keep from being recorded.

When this happens: (i) make it clear that you do not consent to the taking of your phone; (ii) state that you will not delete any data on your phone in case there is a warrant or subpoena later; and (iii) state that you will hand over the phone immediately if ordered to do so.

That is the only safe way to preserve your Fourth Amendment claims against the police if they do something bad to the phone (like delete evidence that shows that tends to show that you were not at fault for the accident). If the police grab the phone while you are delivering your speech about consent and following orders, then that is okay — release the phone freely — the non-consent is still clear. You are not trying to keep the phone, but just establish non-consent to the taking (and, if possible, establish that you have no intention of destroying evi).

Couple of weeks ago at Denny’s (I do my police blogging from a decrepit Denny’s) a man told a long story about how he got screwed (probably for racist reasons) in an accident involving a motorcycle and his car. I told him that if similar circumstances happen again, then he needs to whip out his cell phone and start recording immediately after the accident. Both the man and the Denny’s waiter, who was lissening in, made frowny faces when I told them that. But, if you don’t want to get screwed then it is what you have to do. Would have saved my dear departed mother a lot of grief in the last four years of her life. The grief is still ongoing for those of us who have survived her.

You can always make sure to do a live Upload when recording things, right? That way, even if they steal the phone and delete the data….you’ll still just be able to download the .AVI from UStream or wherever.

The only safe way to preserve my Fourth Amendment rights is to…”hand over the phone immediately if ordered to do so”?

To spell it out in a bit more:

When the police tell you to hand the phone over, it may be a request or it may be an order. The police don’t know if it is a request or an order (they will decide later depending on how it goes down). You also don’t know if it is a request or an order.

By stating that you do not consent to hand the phone over, you make it clear that you are interpreting the instruction as a request rather than an order. However, the policeman will probably decide that he intended the request to be an order. He may do this with a verbal order, or he may do this by attempting to grab the phone.

Once the police clarifies, by word or deed, that he is ordering you to give the phone, the only safe strategy, legally, is to give up the phone with great alacrity and meek compliance.

Not complying with the order leads to two legal risks, which will now be briefly identified. One risk is that a judge will decide that police had a lawful right to seize the phone based on exigent circumstances. If the judge decides that there were exigent circumstances (wrong decision imo fwiw), then you disobey a lawful order and become guilty of the crime of obstruction. You don’t want that.

To spin it out a different way, even if the judge decides it was an unlawful order, you may be guilty of obstruction anyway. As of right now, many jurisdictions make it a crime to disobey even an unlawful order. That may or may not constitutional for the jurisdiction to do, but, unless and until the constitutional law on this point gets clearer, you shouldn’t run the risk of disobeying even an unlawful order.

To spin it out still a different way, if police get your phone, especially while it is recording, you will have some good legal grounds to press them hard and fast to get the phone back after the incident is over. After the phone comes back, you can maintain the suit for recompense during the seizure period.

Ultimately, poster David correctly suggests that the best long term solution is technological. Steaming is the start. Going beyond that, there can be hidden secondary batteries, continuing GPS monitoring, continuing surreptitious recording (activated by removal of the primary battery, loss of signal or remote command). Recording police at the scene is awesome (especially if it i an Anaheim style beatdown), but recording what they say back at the police station is super duper awesome. Once that happens a couple times, they won’t WANT your phone.

The best place to hide the recording device is inside the battery itself (because it will have a power source “hidden in plain site”). Once the ACLU (or perhaps Stringer Bell) designs this product, things will get interesting in a good way.

Perhaps this isn’t going to be a popular opinion, but demonstrating is for the big boys. Sadly, there is always going to be a chance for violence. It’s no place for children, pregnant women, or darling dainty types, for that matter.

I’m not saying the cops are right; in fact, I am perfectly willing to believe that the cops are absolutely wrong. But when there’s an impromptu demonstration and I hear that (Oh, my goodness!) “women and children” were attacked, I’m going to confess that I’m not very sympathetic. Leave the kids home. Do you not have a babysitter or relative that can watch the kids? Sorry, but you’re going to have to leave the protesting to someone else then, no matter your outrage.

#1 You don’t know what you’re talking about “touchy feely” That the victims family protested the Tottenham police station and his sister etal were immediately assaulted. A heavy handed approach was taken from the get go, aside from the fact special branch shot the guy and initiated the cover up. They stood down when it was to their benefit or outnumbered as they are won’t to do. I shit on these bastards.

I’m willing to accept the advice you’re offering in the same context I would accept, say, advice ot just pay the bribe and not make trouble when confronted with a Mexican speeding ticket, or to stay away from political demonstrations in Egypt. But it’s not consistent with a democratic society to say “well, if you dare petition the authorities for redress of greivances, it’s reasonable to expect that your head may get busted or someone may turn his vicious dog on your kids.”

This sort of thing will stop when the mayor and police chief and ranking policeman in charge of policing a protest of this kind understand, all the way down in their bones, that a brutal response to a protest will end their careers, and when the individual officers involved know the same thing. When the cop who pepper sprays a bunch of peaceful protesters is widely known to have ended up working on a loading dock at Wal-Mart, because absolutely no law enforcement or private security company would have him anymore, then taking your kids to a protest march will be much safer. When the mayor who sends goons to break up the annoying protests in the city park finds that he has zero chance of being re-elected and nobody will return his phone calls, when the police chief is invited by the city council to take early retirement after ordering a head-busting breakup of a protest march, then this stuff will get better.

I wasn’t there; all I have to go on is the video. Same as you, probably. Calling it a “protest” is a way to justify the violence. Whether it was an actual protest is questionable. Looked to me as if it were people upset with an earlier event, not any kind of organized protest.

The organized bastards were the cops. They KNEW there were children (the stroller surely tipped them off) and they still fired. They still sent the dog in.

Jeff @ 23. Am I the only person here old enough to remember with painful clarity Kent State? The tide will begin to turn when you repeal the laws of physics. “Political power grows from the barrel of a gun.” Mao Zedong. That’s not some commie chinaman’s view, that’s an immutable law of nature . . . like gravity.

Tell you what else I can’t hear much about police violence against women and children without thinking of the Ludlow Massacre. I agree with Marie, “The organized bastards were the cops. They KNEW there were children . . . and they still fired.”

Okay, it’s only Wkipedia but:

“The massacre resulted in the violent deaths of between 19 and 25 people; sources vary but all sources include two women and eleven children, asphyxiated and burned to death under a single tent.”

Also remember when that when the women and children in the Branch Davidian compound didn’t want to evacuate, the ATF decided to “smoke them out”. Of course the fact that they were being fired upon by ATF agents probably had something to do with the misapprehensions about leaving.

They wrote their blood types on their arms because it seemed certain that many people were going to get shot or injured regardless of how much they complied.

Or perhaps Van Carter is just doing his late, angry white man period Murray Rothbard impression. Never forget that mister “Enemy of the State” himself decided that “the cops must be unleashed” to deal with those darn unruly minorities. I believe that was his reaction to the LA riots of ’92 (Read Brian Doherty’s “Radicals for Capitalism” for more on that). So it seems that some “libertarians” are not so libertarian when certain classes of people (minorities, workers, leftists, etc) get agitated and decide they are sick of living on their knees. Maybe the pro-liberty mask falls off of folks like Rothbard because many who use the term “libertarian” are not CONSISTENTLY libertarians, as they do not challenge ALL forms of domination. They are, in reality just conservatives or liberals of some strain.

It would be nice if we could instantly say that folks like C. Van Carter are just ignorant racists from some fringe group. But sometimes things are more complicated than that.

Thank you and that’s an excellent point. Police departments are still largely male and white, but they do look much different than they did twenty to thirty years ago. To expand on your point, this increased diversity has generally not made P.D.’s more respectful of civil liberties or less likely to engage in egregious abuses and/or corrupt activities.

C. Van Carter is apparently a racist, but he doesn’t seem to mind when minorities don the uniform and fuck shit up in the hood. And I’m sure he also tolerates people of color when they entertain him or cook for him. Hell, I’m sure he has “black friends” too.